Chapter 6: Cognitive Change - Cognitive-Developmental and Sociocultural Approaches

Question 1

What was Piaget the first scientist to do?

Answer 1

systematically explain and examine children’s thinking and reasoning

Question 2

What are schemas?

Answer 2

concepts, ideas, and ways of interacting on the world

• plans to successfully interact with the world
• with each new experience, children need to adapt their thinking and organize what they learn to construct new schemas, and refine existing schemas

Question 3

What is assimilation?

Answer 3

integrating a new experience into a pre-existing schema

ie. toddler has a dog, they discover the neighbour has a dog, and they recognize and understand the dog even if it may look different

Question 4

What is accommodation?

Answer 4

modifying or creating a schema in light of new information

ie. toddler sees a cat and calls it a dog, but someone around her tells her it’s a cat and explains the difference—assists the child in creating a new schema of cats

Question 5

What is cognitive disequilibrum?

Answer 5

our schemas don’t match everything in the world

• cognitive change is constantly occurring as a result of cognitive disequilibrium
  ie. moment when the toddler was told that what they thought was a dog wasn’t a dog—cat did not fit into the toddler’s schemas

Question 6

Stage 1: Infancy - The Sensorimotor Stage

What are reflexes?

Answer 6

first indicators that infants have the ability to interact with the world and understand it are reflexes

• infants are born with a number of involuntary autonomic reflexes

Question 7

Stage 1: Infancy - The Sensorimotor Stage

Reflex: Palmar Grasp

• Response
• Developmental Course

Answer 7

curling fingers around objects that touch the palm

birth to 4 months, when it is replaced by voluntary grasp

Question 8

Stage 1: Infancy - The Sensorimotor Stage

Reflex: Rooting

• Response
• Developmental Course

Answer 8

turning head and tongue toward stimulus when cheek is touched

disappears over first few weeks of life and is replaced by voluntary head movement

Question 9

Stage 1: Infancy - The Sensorimotor Stage

Reflex: Sucking

• Response
• Developmental Course

Answer 9

sucking on objects placed into the mouth

birth to 6 months

Question 10

Stage 1: Infancy - The Sensorimotor Stage

Reflex: Moro

• Response
• Developmental Course

Answer 10

giving a startle response in reaction to loud noise or sudden change in the position of the head, resulting in throwing out arms, arching the back, and bringing the arms together as if to grasp something

birth to 5-7 months

Question 11

Stage 1: Infancy - The Sensorimotor Stage

Reflex: Babinksi

• Response
• Developmental Course

Answer 11

fanning and curling the toes in response to stroking the bottom of the foot

birth to 8-12 months

Question 12

Stage 1: Infancy - The Sensorimotor Stage

Reflex: Stepping

• Response
• Developmental Course

Answer 12

making stepping movements as if to walk when held upright with feet touching a flat surface

birth to 2-3 months

Question 13

Stage 1: Infancy - The Sensorimotor Stage

Reflex: Swimming

• Response
• Developmental Course

Answer 13

holding breath and moving arms and legs, as if to swim, when placed in water

birth to 4-6 months

Question 14

Stage 1: Infancy - The Sensorimotor Stage

What are primary circular reactions?

Answer 14

repeating actions involving body parts that produce pleasurable or interesting results

• often begin by chance or action
• infant is learning more about their world

ie. accidentally discover their hand by their mouth and start sucking on their thumb (calming effect for them), playing with their feet

Question 15

Stage 1: Infancy - The Sensorimotor Stage

What are secondary circular reactions?

Answer 15

repetitions of actions that trigger responses in external environment

• going beyond their own body, and realizing that there are things they can do to make something happen in the outside world

Question 16

Stage 1: Infancy - The Sensorimotor Stage

What is object permanence?

Answer 16

understanding that objects continue to exist outside of sensory awareness

• object permanence signals to others that they now have the mental capacity for mental representation (can picture things in your hand even though you can’t see them)

ie. show a baby a toy and throw a blanket over it—if they don’t have object permanence, they think that the toy just went away (outside of their sensory awareness, therefore it doesn’t exist)
- once they acquire object permanence, they understand that toy continues to exist under the blanket even though they can’t see it, and will pull the blanket off

Question 17

Stage 1: Infancy - The Sensorimotor Stage

What are tertiary circular reactions?

Answer 17

active, purposeful, trial-and-error exploration to search for new discoveries
- infant will vary their actions to see if something changes in the outcome

ie. dropping things from their high chair

Question 18

Stage 2: Early Childhood (Age 2-6) - Preoperational Stage

What is preoperational reasoning?

Answer 18

characterized by a dramatic leap in the use of symbolic thinking, primarily with the use of language

• better able to organize their thoughts and imagination, and use it to guide their behavior

Question 19

Stage 2: Early Childhood (Age 2-6) - Preoperational Stage

What us egocentrism?

Answer 19

inability to take another person’s perspective

• have a tendency to view the world only in their perspective
• think that other people share their feelings, knowledge, physical view
• physical view test: 3-mountain problem (seeing different things of the mountain model when on opposite sides of a table)

Question 20

Stage 2: Early Childhood (Age 2-6) - Preoperational Stage

What is animism?

Answer 20

belief that inanimate objects are alive and have feelings and intentions

ie. give dolls, action figures personality and feelings, and treat them like another human (why they get upset when they lose the toy)

Question 21

Stage 2: Early Childhood (Age 2-6) - Preoperational Stage

What is irreversibility?

Answer 21

lack of reasoning to see that reversing a process can often undo and restore it to the original state

Question 22

Stage 2: Early Childhood (Age 2-6) - Preoperational Stage

What is conservation?

Answer 22

understanding that the quantity of a substance is not transformed by changes in its appearance

Question 23

Stage 3: Middle Childhood (Age 6-11) - Concrete Operational Stage

What is the concrete operational reasoning stage?

Answer 23

• can use logic to solve problems
• have a more sophisticated understanding of the real world
• acquire reversibility and conservation skills

Question 24

Stage 3: Middle Childhood (Age 6-11) - Concrete Operational Stage

What is classification?

Answer 24

ability to understand hierarchies, to simultaneously consider relations between a general category and more specific subcategories

Question 25

Stage 3: Middle Childhood (Age 6-11) - Concrete Operational Stage What is seriation?

Answer 25

ability to order objects in a series according to a physical dimension (putting things in size order)

Question 26

Stage 3: Middle Childhood (Age 6-11) - Concrete Operational Stage What is transitive inference?

Answer 26

ability to infer the relationship between two objects by understanding each object’s relationship to a third

Question 27

Stage 3: Middle Childhood (Age 6-11) - Concrete Operational Stage Describe cultural differences in concrete operational reasoning.

Answer 27

- differences in how children represent skills of concrete operational reasoning - performance can be a result of methodology, level of education

Question 28

Stage 4: Adolescence - Formal Operational Stage What is the formal operational stage?

Answer 28

- being able to think abstractly, logically, and systematically - being able to understand the hypothetical

Question 29

Stage 4: Adolescence - Formal Operational Stage What is hypothetical-deductive reasoning?

Answer 29

ability to consider problems, generate and systematically test hypotheses, and draw conclusions - many adults fail - not consistent across people and intellectual domains - formal education plays a big part in these skills (better opportunities to use this reasoning to develop cognitive skills)

Question 30

Stage 4: Adolescence - Formal Operational Stage What is adolescent egocentrism?

Answer 30

separating one’s own perspective from that of another person

Question 31

Stage 4: Adolescence - Formal Operational Stage What is imaginary audience?

Answer 31

heightened level of self-consciousness - each individual is concerned about themselves, but each of them think everyone else in the world is watching them

Question 32

Stage 4: Adolescence - Formal Operational Stage What is personal fable?

Answer 32

sense of self-importance and invincibility - believe that emotions they are experiencing are unique and way more intense for themselves than anyone else—think it’s not happening to anyone else (“nobody understands me”) - puts them at higher levels of depression and suicidal thoughts - think something bad that can happen to others won’t happen to them, which increases risk-taking behaviour

Question 33

Beyond Formal Operations What us postformal reasoning?

Answer 33

integrates abstract reasoning with practical considerations - recognizes that most problems have multiple causes and solutions (some solutions better than others) - all problems involve some level of uncertainty

Question 34

Beyond Formal Operations What is relativistic thinking?

Answer 34

most knowledge is viewed as relative, dependent on the situation and thinker - all beliefs are suggestive, and everyone takes a different perspective - all perspectives are defensible (how you can have an intellectual discussion or debate, and not assume there is a right answer)

Question 35

Beyond Formal Operations What is pragmatic thought?

Answer 35

emphasizes the use of logic to address everyday problems - allows us to accept inconsistency, ambiguity, and uncertainty - nothing we think about is concrete anymore

Question 36

Beyond Formal Operations What is cognitive affective complexity?

Answer 36

capacity to be aware of emotions, integrate positive and negative feelings about an issue, and regulate intense emotions to make logical decisions about complicated issues - combining emotions and logical thinking to come to a solution or decision

Question 37

Vygotsky's Sociocultural Perspective What is the sociocultural perspective?

Answer 37

we are embedded in a context that shapes how we think and who we become - social experiences teach children how to think - our thinking changes as we interact with people and their environment

Question 38

Vygotsky's Sociocultural Perspective What is scaffolding?

Answer 38

assistance that permits the child to bridge the gap between his or her current competence level and the task at hand

Question 39

Vygotsky's Sociocultural Perspective What is guided participation?

Answer 39

more skilled partner is attuned to needs of the child and helps her accomplish more than she could do alone

Question 40

Vygotsky's Sociocultural Perspective What is zone of proximal development?

Answer 40

gap between a child’s competence level (what she can do alone) and what she can do with assistance

Question 41

Vygotsky's Sociocultural Perspective What are cultural tools?

Answer 41

includes physical items and ways of thinking about phenomena and problem solving - facilitate learning about phenomena and problem solving - used to advance your knowledge and understanding ie. cell phones, tablets, laptops